


Demon Shark

by BlackMajjicDuchess



Series: Namesake [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Child Murder, Chimeras, Death, Demons, Dreams vs. Reality, Drowning, Gen, Identity Issues, Kirigakure, Memory Loss, Ocean, Rescue, Science, Sharks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMajjicDuchess/pseuds/BlackMajjicDuchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I got the idea in my head one day to bring some of the Naruto characters face-to-face with the thing they were named after for the first time. I thought it might be fun. Also accepting challenges!</p>
<p>Stories will be posted separately but as part of the Namesake series.</p>
<p>Part 2: Demon Shark</p>
<p>The boy who would become Kisame Hoshigaki battles for his life and is rescued by a fearsome predator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demon Shark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ishimaru_Asuka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishimaru_Asuka/gifts).



> To issue a challenge, just comment on one of the stories in the series with the name you'd like to see done. The only stipulation is that it HAS to be a name that has a meaning, and it has to be a meaning that is something one can encounter. Example: Madara means "spots." What the heck am I supposed to do with that? On the other hand, Naruto's name refers to some kind of fish cake, which is something he could confront somehow.
> 
> Kisame Challenge from Ishimaru_Asuka
> 
> Kisame = Demon Shark  
> Hoshigaki = Persimmon

He was drowning. He was young… he didn’t even know there was a such thing as drowning or what the word even meant. He was hardly old enough to even talk. He wasn’t stupid, though, and he knew what panic felt like. Instinctively, he understood that if he didn’t find a way out of this, and soon, he was finished. So, his small arms flailed and pulled at the overwhelming volume of water, legs kicking wildly. He had never learned how to swim; he shouldn’t have needed to for many years yet.

Above him the sunlight shining down through the water was beautiful but scary. The world above was where he belonged. So why had his father thrown him into the sea?

_I will not give up!_ He vowed as he fought the crush of water pressure and the tug of current.

But he was losing. The waves were too powerful, more powerful than anything on land. Earth was so stationary, immobile. As soon as his small body had hit the water, its might had simply swallowed him and dragged him under. It was as if his father had offered up his tiny body as an offering to the water, and the black, fathomless monster that it was, it had greedily and readily accepted.

Dying. He was dying. The blue of the sky above was slowing becoming as black as the ocean beneath him. His muscles quit working without his say so, and the burn in his lungs swallowed him from the inside. The world went black.

* * *

 

_Hm. Hardly even big enough for a snack._ A voice in his mind whispered itself right into his consciousness.

_Am I dead? Is this Heaven?_

He felt amusement through the connection. _Heaven? Heaven? Your father just threw your miserable ass into the ocean to get rid of you. No, small fry, if you’re dead then this is Hell._

_So I am dead?_

Awareness bloomed. His eyes slowly opened as if for the first time. What he saw was confusing, to say the least. Before him was the massive jaws of a creature that was surely more of a nightmare than real. It might have been a fish, except that its lean body was rippling with silky looking muscles, its fins looked more like blades, and it had row upon row of wicked teeth meant for shredding. Even its teeth had teeth, for each sharp triangle was serrated with smaller triangles, each one its own tiny saw. Its tiny little dark eyes peered shrewdly at him from sunken pits in its face. All over, its body was pocked and striped with scars.

_Technically, yes,_ the thing replied. _You’re in front of my fanged face, after all. No one gets to hang there and live to tell the tale. Well, not unless they are family._

_What are you?_ he asked. He was dead, wasn’t he? So he had no reason to fear any nightmare, even one so menacing as this one, and his curiosity was intense.

The teeth broadened in a grin. _I suppose I should not be surprised that you have not seen a shark before. Few have been so close to one and survived. We are the masters of the sea. No one travels on them without our permission._

_Shark?_

_Yes, yes, a shark. I am a shark, and a shark am I. Kisame, the Demon Shark, king of the depths of the ocean, lord of all sharks. And who are you, since we’re apparently going to be pleasant with each other?_

_Sanyo,_ he replied simply. _My mother named me Sanyo._

The currents around him shifted, and he realized he was suspended in the water. How was he breathing? Or maybe he wasn’t? _Well, then, Sanyo,_ it went on. _The Earth is no longer your home._ The huge mouth parted slightly, and he saw even more teeth behind those teeth. Was he dreaming? This couldn’t be real.

_What do you mean?_ he asked, disturbed. He had suspected that something was different, but he had always belonged with his two feet firmly planted upon the ground. If not the Earth, than what?

_You were dying, and fool that I am, I found pity somewhere deep in the devil’s essence that serves shark kind as a soul. Shark mothers have no contact with their young, and the young eat each other in the womb. That makes you something kind of like the rest of us, that your own kin would throw your helpless life into an environment as merciless and mighty as the ocean. He had to have known you would die._ The massive shark took pause to think. _I can’t take you back to land, but I’ve merged some of my cells with yours. It has granted you the ability to breathe underwater and kept you alive until now. Perhaps someday it may also serve to make you strong. From now on, you are a child of the sea, though you may walk on earth. When you wake, you may not remember much. Death has a strange effect on the brain._

_Wake up? What do you mean?_

Amusement rankled once more. _Back to the garish, loveless earth with you, Child of the Sea._

* * *

 

He woke. He flexed fingers that felt new made and peered around at his surroundings. The light burned his eyes, and the sun felt too hot, though the breeze that struck his naked body promised that it was not a hot day. He stared at his hands. He didn’t remember them being blue-gray before... 

With a start, he realized that he didn’t remember much of anything at all. Who was he? How did he get here?

The young boy stood on the beach at the edge of the sea in the Land of Water, bewildered. He knew he had experienced something miraculous, but he could hardly remember any of it at all. There was panic, then peace, and something about a shark… he was certain he had been smaller when it happened, and as he stretched legs that were too long and atrophied from disuse, he was surer of it. Several years of his life had disappeared, and everything before that panicked moment when he had been fighting for his life might as well not have existed.

Eventually, he had just accepted it. He couldn’t rediscover a memory if it was simply gone, and it didn’t seem as important anymore. It wasn’t until someone asked him his name that he had any reason to care to understand who he was.

“Nice to meet you! Um… what did you say your name was again?” The man who asked was blind, which was probably for the best. He had seen his reflection, and had finally understood why most people feared him, even if he did only wish to belong among them.

He blinked, but he couldn’t remember his name. There _was_ one name that he remembered, though, and it was as good as any. “Eh… Kisame,” he responded, glancing awkwardly around the market where everyone but the blind man was openly and fearfully staring at him. The smell of dried persimmons hit his nostrils as he turned, and so he offered that as a last name. “Kisame Hoshigaki.”

“That’s a fine name,” the man proclaimed with a smile. “Welcome to Kirigakure, Kisame Hoshigaki.”


End file.
